Blue Abomination
Well, the walkaway dress never materialized, which I'm sure you already assumed. I pulled it out of the envelope, ironed the entire pattern sheets (too scared to cut the pattern), laid out my test fabric on my cutting table, laid the (whole!) pattern sheets on top, and stopped, scared to death. Scared to cut the fabric, more scared to cut the pattern. I don't know why I'm worried abou the fabric - it's just cheap stuff that I bought at Fabricland during a "half-off-the-lowest-price" sale, so I only paid $1.00 per metre - I can afford to screw up less than $5.00 worth of fabric - what's wrong with me??
So anyway, I hyperventilated for a few minutes, then went and made a pot of coffee, just so I could have coffee and Baileys - I'm actually not much of a drinker, but when I want some good soothin', a cup of lightly doctored coffee goes a long way.
I came back, stared at my cutting table for awhile, and then carefully folded the pattern back up, folded up the fabric, and went to my computer, as always, so I could read the blogs of the truly talented, in hopes that I would absorb some of their talent by osmosis.
In the end, I ended up back in the sewing room, plowing through my pattern bins, until I came across a pattern I got from...I'm not sure where - I've been collecting patterns for awhile, and they normally come in little lots. Anyway, it has a notation in black sharpie that says "+ size cowl neck, loose sleeve", and it's made out of plain old waxed paper.
I pulled out some stretchy blue knit fabric that is so disagreeable feeling that I was tempted to wear rubber gloves in order to cut out the pattern. The pattern pieces are small enough that they fit on my biggest rotary mat, so I laid them out there, pinned a little, used cans of soup to weight everything down, then cut the pieces out, sewed them together, and voila - this is the result. Painful!
Rest assured, it actually looks worse on me than on my dummy, who currently has no name. Actually, I rather like the cowl, but the "loose" sleeves make me look like I've been doing battle with a weed wacker.
On a happier note, I FINISHED something. It was horrible, and will be unwearable until I hack off the sleeves - it actually looks okay under a light cardigan, but again, the disagreeable feeling fabric will probably discourage me from actually wearing it.
To reward myself for my quasi-success, I took myself shopping at my favorite source for vintage patterns, which is the local Value Village. While there, not only did I find some more cute 50's and 60's patterns (not in my size, of course), but I also found this:
So anyway, I hyperventilated for a few minutes, then went and made a pot of coffee, just so I could have coffee and Baileys - I'm actually not much of a drinker, but when I want some good soothin', a cup of lightly doctored coffee goes a long way.
I came back, stared at my cutting table for awhile, and then carefully folded the pattern back up, folded up the fabric, and went to my computer, as always, so I could read the blogs of the truly talented, in hopes that I would absorb some of their talent by osmosis.
In the end, I ended up back in the sewing room, plowing through my pattern bins, until I came across a pattern I got from...I'm not sure where - I've been collecting patterns for awhile, and they normally come in little lots. Anyway, it has a notation in black sharpie that says "+ size cowl neck, loose sleeve", and it's made out of plain old waxed paper.
I pulled out some stretchy blue knit fabric that is so disagreeable feeling that I was tempted to wear rubber gloves in order to cut out the pattern. The pattern pieces are small enough that they fit on my biggest rotary mat, so I laid them out there, pinned a little, used cans of soup to weight everything down, then cut the pieces out, sewed them together, and voila - this is the result. Painful!
Rest assured, it actually looks worse on me than on my dummy, who currently has no name. Actually, I rather like the cowl, but the "loose" sleeves make me look like I've been doing battle with a weed wacker.
On a happier note, I FINISHED something. It was horrible, and will be unwearable until I hack off the sleeves - it actually looks okay under a light cardigan, but again, the disagreeable feeling fabric will probably discourage me from actually wearing it.
To reward myself for my quasi-success, I took myself shopping at my favorite source for vintage patterns, which is the local Value Village. While there, not only did I find some more cute 50's and 60's patterns (not in my size, of course), but I also found this:
What excited me most, of course, was that it still has the original manual, and everything looks just like new. The whole kit and kaboodle was in a plastic bag, laid out much as it is in the photo, except that the extra bits were sort of rolling around in the bottom of the bag.
I brought it home and popped the bag open, and was moderately horrified at the smell rolling out of the bag - it smells like mothballs and despair. Oh well, a good airing-out should fix that. It's currently stinking up my sewing room, but since the sewing room already smelled faintly of despair anyway, it's really not so bad.
Congrats on finishing something, but now go and have another coffee with a shot in it and start cutting out that walkaway dress. The smell of the sewing room may only change to frustration, instead of despair, but change can do you good.
You're right, I know you're right! How badly can I truly screw it up, anyway!? Wait - I probably shouldn't tempt fate by asking questions like that (she says, looking out of the corner of her eye at the stack of pillow shams she sewed completely shut a few weeks ago, and hasn't had the heart to open up enough to stuff).